[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 177 (Thursday, November 15, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H14073-H14079]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      GREEN THE CAPITOL INITIATIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Perlmutter). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. 
Blumenauer) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity. As we are 
concluding our activities wrapping up on the floor, preparing for the 
Thanksgiving recess, as people go back to work in their districts, and 
hopefully spend a little time with their families, it is appropriate 
for us to reflect on the important work that has been done here in 
Congress under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, 
working with our House Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard, to 
develop a Green the Capitol initiative.
  We have made it clear under the new Democratic leadership in the 
House that it is not appropriate to ask the American people to address 
the challenges of global warming and climate change without first 
carefully examining the ways that we reduce our own work energy 
consumption and sustainable practices here in the workspace.
  Mr. Speaker, I have spent most of my career working with 
environmental issues at the State, the local, and now the Federal 
level, working in partnership with people in the private sector to be 
able to make our communities more liveable, to make families safer, 
healthier, and more economically secure by virtue of our environmental 
initiatives, how we put the pieces together.
  Over the years, I have had lots of ideas myself. I have heard them 
from others. We have looked at policies and practices, rules and 
regulations. I will tell you that the one thing, if I were empowered 
for a day to be able to set the rules and regulations, it wouldn't be 
any new regulation, any new tax, any new environmental law. It would 
simply be to make sure that the Federal Government practiced what we 
ask the rest of America to do in terms of our behavior regarding the 
environment.
  The Federal Government is the largest manager of infrastructure in 
the world. It is the largest consumer of energy. We have facilities 
from coast to coast. We are the largest employer in the United States. 
And the extent to which we are able to put in practice the best 
practices, it will have a transformational effect, not only in terms of 
the Federal operations themselves, but in terms of what difference it 
will make as we are setting trends and move forward.
  I am extraordinarily impressed with what has happened already. I 
can't say enough about this initiative. The goals that were adopted 
were to operate the House in a carbon neutral manner by the end of the 
110th Congress; to reduce the carbon footprint of the House by cutting 
energy consumption 50 percent in 10 years; and, to make House 
operations a model of sustainability.
  There are a number of steps that the Chief Administrative Officer has 
already done to implement these goals. They purchased renewable energy 
power for electricity, funding that was approved in the Legislative 
Branch appropriations bill. We have switched the Capitol power plant, 
which provides heating and cooling to the House, to natural gas. It 
will improve the air quality on Capitol Hill for the residents. This 
was also already approved. I personally have been appalled at looking 
at the belching gas coal-fired plant that powers many of the energy 
needs for Capitol Hill. That is being changed.
  To improve energy efficiency, the House will use metering, 
commissioning, and tracking to improve operations, install energy-
efficient lighting, adopt new technologies and operation practices, 
other office equipment, update heating and ventilation. We are looking 
for sustainability in all House operations. Purchased carbon offsets 
from the Chicago Climate Exchange. These are initiatives, Mr. Speaker, 
that are extraordinarily exciting as they are spreading out across 
Capitol Hill.
  Before turning to some of my colleagues this evening, I however must 
note that our friends in the minority office have decided to somehow 
try and politicize this effort issuing a broadside, and I am willing to 
talk about this further if we have time with my colleagues, but issuing 
a broadside against this initiative, claiming that it is somehow, the 
term the House Minority Leader Boehner used, green pork. It is sort of 
disappointing, I guess, to see that the minority leader doesn't see the 
value in leading by example and reducing the House energy costs and 
modeling the behavior we expect from citizens. I am disappointed he 
would prefer to have the Capitol continue to waste energy, limit 
transportation options for House employees, and continue to force 
Capitol Hill residents to experience the pollution of the Capitol Power 
Plant.
  The green pork update has taken issue with a number of initiatives 
that the CAO has undertaken, taking to task the notion of working with 
the Chicago Climate Exchange.
  I wish that the House could offset all our emissions on premise, but 
it is not possible at this point. But the Chicago Climate Exchange is a 
credible mechanism, the world's first and North America's only 
voluntary, legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction registry 
and training program.
  The minority leader attacks initiative here on Capitol Hill for car-
sharing. It is kind of ironic, we actually have higher per capita use 
of auto commuting on Capitol Hill with our 7,000 employees than in 
Washington, D.C. as a whole. One of the initiatives to help solve the 
problem of forcing people to drive their cars is to use car-sharing, 
something my colleague from the Seattle area can speak to.

                              {time}  2250

  We've had Flex Car and Zip Cars. The average car is only used 2 
hours, less than 2 hours a day. Car-sharing is something that's moving 
across the country. It's been pioneered in a number of European cities.
  The minority leader dismisses this as a ``hybrid loaner car for 
staffers wishing to run errands or catch a movie during work hours.''
  I find that offensive in the extreme. The 7,000 men and women who 
work for us on Capitol Hill are amazing.
  Now I don't know what happens in the minority leader's office, maybe 
he has employees that go off in the middle of the day to catch movies. 
I don't know of anybody, Republican or Democrat, who experiences that. 
And it's a slander against the outstanding primarily young men and 
women who work with us. It's illegal in the first instance to do this. 
But I think it really is demeaning for the people that we work with.
  Car-sharing, if that's what they're trying to get at, is a very 
successful business around the country. It's recently on the GSA 
schedule. I'm pleased to have a small part in encouraging that to 
happen here on Capitol Hill. We now have over 100 employees that have 
signed up for it. There are cars that are parked here that people can 
use before or after hours for business or after hours on their own time 
and avoid having to drive a vehicle.
  I will return to this in a moment. I am obviously quite disappointed 
in the

[[Page H14074]]

minority leader slandering our employees and demeaning this effort, 
even picking out, claiming that he's concerned about the notion of 
using Segways. The Segway personal transporter is not in the 
initiative. It's nothing that we have done in bringing forward this 
program. They were part of a green products fair that was conducted 
here 2 weeks ago on Capitol Hill, fabulously successful. But it's an 
example of the fuzzy thinking and sloppy research that I think typifies 
the Republican approach to trying to green the Capitol and their 
dismissive nature of it now.
  I would, however, if I could, recognize my colleague from the State 
of Washington, Jay Inslee, a gentleman who is deeply involved with the 
environmental issue, who's just published a book, I think it's entitled 
``Apollo's Fire,'' where he has spent, with a co-author, over a year 
researching these issues, has tremendous insights and is using the work 
that he has done to help implement a sense of vision here on the House 
floor. It informs his work on the Commerce Committee, and I am 
privileged to serve with him on the Speaker's Special Committee on 
Global Warming and Energy Independence where he has made invaluable 
contributions, and would recognize him at this point.
  Mr. INSLEE. Thanks, Mr. Blumenauer, for leading this discussion. You 
know, when people come through the Capitol here, you can see them 
beaming with pride of the Capitol, and it's because we lead the world 
in democracy and people feel good about this building. Now, they're 
going to have another reason to feel good about the U.S. Capitol and 
the House of Representatives, because we intend to be the greenest 
parliamentary Chamber in the world. And, in fact, we probably will 
become the first zero carbon, become a carbon-neutral legislative body, 
the first in the world. And that's something that America can take 
pride in. And we're accomplishing that because we want to, on a 
bipartisan basis, do these commonsense things to try to reduce our 
CO2 emissions.
  And we're doing that. Switching from coal, first, to natural gas in 
our power plant, which reduces carbon dioxide something like 20 to 30 
percent. We're then taking a look at the possibility of going to a 
totally renewable fuel of wood pellets grown in New Hampshire and some 
other places which would go to essentially zero CO2 on a net 
basis.
  Under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Dan Beard, we're having a 
green cafeteria. A new contract's been let so our cafeteria reduces by 
50 percent the matter of waste. And when you reduce waste, you quit 
using energy.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Would the gentleman just yield on this point?
  Mr. INSLEE. Yes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Just in referencing the work that's already under 
way, now we are implementing in our cafeteria products that will add 
less than a nickel to the overall price of a meal that are fully 
biodegradable, items here that will turn to dirt within 90 days, unlike 
the typical foam clam shell and plastic cup that will be here thousands 
of years. These are being implemented on Capitol Hill, something that 
will be responding to the desires of the outstanding young men and 
women who work here who've been agitating about this. Having 
biodegradable products that are completely compostable will reduce the 
problems of land fill and pollution for centuries to come.
  Mr. INSLEE. And the importance of this waste disposal from a global 
warming position is that every time you reduce the amount of waste you 
throw away by a ton, you reduce the amount of carbon dioxide going into 
the atmosphere by two tons by not wasting all that production and 
energy associated with it.
  So what we're doing in this House is doing what a picture I have here 
of Mike and Meg Town of their home in Redmond, Washington, one the 
rainiest places in the United States, who built a home that's 
essentially carbon neutral. By doing the same kinds of things they're 
doing in their house, we're now going to do in the people's House, 
which is to use some commonsense waste disposal systems, decent 
insulation, energy-efficient lighting, energy-efficient heating and 
cooling system. They use solar photovoltaics to get to a carbon neutral 
house.
  People are doing this across the country. I'm proud to say we're 
starting to do it in this House. And I know I'd like to yield to Mr. 
Farr who can help us on that.
  Mr. FARR. First of all, thank you for doing this Special Order. It's 
very important for the American public to know that their Capitol, this 
is a public building, the people of this country own it. But we, as 
caretakers of it, are changing it into a model place to work and to 
have as a seat of government.
  And just a few things that Mr. Blumenauer talked about, we're 
eliminating plastics and Styrofoam from the food service has totally 
been eliminated. As he showed, they're using compostable food service 
items. We're running a commercial composting operation, reducing waste 
by 50 percent. We've installed 30,000 compact fluorescent lights and 
use one-quarter of the energy that will last 10 times longer than the 
regular light bulbs.
  We've changed the settings on heating and ceiling fans to reduce the 
run-times by 14 percent. We've replaced 84 vending machines with energy 
efficient equivalents. People don't think about these vending machines. 
They're all plugged in and they have lights and everything on them.
  Analyzing the electrical energy usage throughout the 6 million square 
feet of the House buildings, the offices that we occupy, we're doing 
that audit now to find savings. We've activated economizers on building 
air conditioners, which cut the annual cooling cost by 20 percent. And 
we've initiated a study to relight the Capitol dome. Those lights are 
on all night, and I think we're all proud of it, but that study will 
reduce the energy requirements and do very efficient lighting.
  And as you said, what you see here is that I think this is a real 
response to what the voters asked for last November, which was a change 
in direction in America in their House of Representatives and their 
Senate. They elected new majorities. The new majorities elected new 
Speakers. And the new Speaker has led us in a new direction.

                              {time}  2300

  And in just a short period of time, a number of months, we've done 
some dramatic changes in this building, and it's just historic. And I 
would like to compliment both of my colleagues, we're all west 
coasters, Washington, Oregon and California. And I think what we're 
reflecting here in the Capitol is what we bring from your own States, 
that have been very conscious about the sound economics of energy 
efficiency.
  And the last thing I would just like to say is that this blast that 
the Republican leadership put out about the greening of the Capitol is 
so un-business, it's so dumb, it's sort of that dinosaur politics that 
just says, you know, don't change. If you look at the businesses in 
America, the new investment is in all the stuff that we're doing. And 
this is the direction this country is going. It's the direction the 
planet is going. It makes good economic sense and it makes great 
environmental sense. And we ought to be applauding ourselves for 
stepping up to the plate and not criticizing those who have taken the 
lead.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate, Congressman Farr, both your being here 
and the work that you have done for years, dating back to your tenure 
as a local official and as a legislator in the State of California, 
continuing a fine family tradition of sensitivity to the environment.
  The point you just made about the difference between having an energy 
policy that our friends on the other side of the aisle that would be 
perfect for the 1950s, maybe, but not where business is going, not 
where local government is going, not where any of our three State 
governments are going, is unfortunate. And people are turning to change 
these practices not just because they are fuzzy-headed tree huggers, 
but because it makes good, solid business sense.
  The initiatives that have been undertaken in the House to this point 
are anticipated to reduce our energy bill by more than $5 million a 
year at the end of the 10-year period. We invest a little money at the 
outset, like businesses are doing across the country,

[[Page H14075]]

like some families are doing, with energy-efficient appliances or more 
energy-efficient vehicles, but it pays for itself.
  I was particularly put off when they were taking to task the 
environmentally sensitive adhesives and materials that we're putting on 
Capitol Hill. One of the problems right now in our households is that 
people use building products, use materials that are not 
environmentally sensitive, that actually put people at risk, put people 
at risk in terms of the health of their family, that we have in 
business. When they use environmentally sensitive adhesives, for 
instance, it not only enables a little shoe company in my State, Nike, 
to meet U.S. EPA air quality standards in Thailand by using these 
water-based solvents, it's a better product, it's a safer product, and 
it's safer for the producer and for the user.
  It seems to me that this is the type of thinking that I commend Chief 
Administrative Officer Beard for bringing into play here in the House.
  I would turn to my colleague to maybe elaborate based on his 
experience.
  Mr. INSLEE. Well, the point I would like to make is to point out why 
these things are happening. They're happening because of leadership. We 
have leadership from the top with Speaker  Nancy Pelosi who, when she 
assumed office I think in the first week or two, said we're going to 
have a green House of Representatives, and we're going to save money in 
the process. And she had a good leader, Dan Beard, take charge of this.
  And the reason I point this out is that you look at, in corporate 
America we see similar leadership. The President of Dow Chemical, who 
10 years ago basically said we're going to save money, they have now 
reduced their energy usage by at least 30 percent, and they intend to 
reduce it another 20 percent. And when I asked him, Why did you do 
this? He said, Really simple, it saves money.
  British Petroleum, a petroleum and oil company under the leadership 
of former Chairman Sir Henry Brown, had reduced their usage of energy 
and saved $300 million and actually met what would have been their 
CO2 emissions target. It happens because of leadership.
  And I want to comment on one thing the House is doing as well. We are 
committing to buying green electricity. That means electricity that is 
generated by non-CO2-emitting sources. And I just want to 
make a point. This is not something that is just a pipe dream; it is 
really happening.
  I want to show two types of technology that are working today. One, I 
want to show a solar thermal technology. This is a solar thermal 
technology manufactured by the Ausra Energy Company. The Ausra Energy 
Company just signed contracts with the Florida Public Power and Light 
Company and the California Public Utility for over 400 megawatts. 
That's enough to do over 400,000 homes of pure CO2 solar 
energy. And the way this works is, they've discovered a way to 
manufacture mirrors that are flat, that are very inexpensive, that 
focus the radian energy of the sun on a pipe that has water or a liquid 
metal in it, very long sheaths here. This is several acres of mirrors. 
This hot water then makes steam, the steam makes CO2-
emitting energy. And they intend to make this for prices competitive 
with coal within the decade.
  Now, I point this out for our Members in the Chamber who think we 
can't do solar power in Florida. It's happening in Florida now, and in 
California. And if people think that this is some type of thing that 
just the hemp-wearing folks of America believe in, people are going to 
make money on this, because for every two acres of these mirrors, you 
can power 1,000 homes. This is not just to run your little fan, it's to 
run all of your electricity in your house. And that's what we intend to 
do in this House, because this House, under the leadership of Nancy 
Pelosi, understands the future of technology to allow this.
  I want to point out just one other technology that has the capability 
of helping in this regard, and I will show just a quick story.
  This is a picture of the Imperium biodiesel company. It's called 
Imperium Energy. It's in Grays Harbor, WA. You see these tanks here; 
this is where biodiesel, which is essentially a zero CO2-
emitting biodiesel plant, that's in a former failing lumber town that 
has now reinvigorated the economy of Grays Harbor, WA. It happened 
because a guy named John Plaza had the guts and the vision to go out 
and buy some old vats from the Rainier Brewery in Seattle, WA, I used 
to be a fan of Rainier Brewery, for various reasons, and built himself, 
in his garage, in a little warehouse, a biodiesel plant, then went out 
and raised some venture capital and has now built the largest biodiesel 
plant in the world in Grays Harbor, Washington. And he is now going to 
be providing biodiesel, going to probably have 10 to 30 plants like 
this around the country.

  Now, our proposal in the House to go to a green economy is based on 
the genius of guys like John Plaza, who know how to blend technology 
with venture capital and go out and make a buck and help us provide 
green technology. And this is what we're doing in the House, and I'm 
excited about it. And I think there is a reason to be proud of it.
  I wonder if I could yield to Mr. George Miller, who has been 
instrumental in this program.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I want to thank you very much for 
taking this time to discuss what is almost now a year of the effort by 
Speaker Pelosi to provide for the greening of the Capitol and the 
surrounding areas here on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
  And her choice of Dan Beard as the Chief Administrative Officer to 
lead this effort is a wise choice. Dan Beard worked for the Resources 
Committee when I was Chair of that committee, and really led a 
transformation in western water usage throughout the western United 
States. When he was at the Committee, and later at the Bureau of 
Reclamation, he transformed those programs from huge, wasteful water 
projects into projects of conservation, ending subsidies that the 
taxpayers were paying in many cases, or reducing the subsidies that 
taxpayers were paying that led, again, to water conservation, to new 
technologies being brought onto the farmland, to level those lands, to 
provide for drip irrigation, to provide for computerization of 
irrigation, to mingle water with fertilizers or other things that were 
necessary for the growing of those crops. That has saved farmers a huge 
amount of money. It has provided for better utilization of the 
resource. Water was able to be recycled into fish and wildlife 
protection in other parts of the State and all through the Southwest, 
in Montana, in Utah and in California. So, he has a long experience for 
this.
  When he left the Congress and the administration, he went on to work 
in dealing with public-private partnerships to bring about 
environmental solutions to very difficult problems and was able to 
engage the public sector, the private sector, the nonprofit sector to 
build teams, to build organizations to solve some very thorny problems 
around this country.
  That's the expertise he brought to the greening of the Capitol. And 
as we've seen in this first year, many things that were just taken for 
granted here that were so wasteful of our environment, were so wasteful 
of energy, so wasteful of taxpayer dollars, that now has changed, or 
started to change. And it's a work in progress, but I think as Members 
see it, one, they're proud that they're part of this effort. We go back 
and we have town hall meetings with our constituents and we talk to 
them about the urgency and the necessity to do this. And sometimes 
maybe we don't lead as well as we should, but here we are leading in 
this wonderful, wonderful United States Capitol.

                              {time}  2310

  The other one is that this Capitol is part of a neighborhood, and to 
the extent in which we can reduce our reliance on coal-fired plants in 
this neighborhood, we improve the air quality from the people who live 
downwind from the plants that supply the power for the Capitol. The 
extent to which the Chief Administrative Officer that been able to role 
that into green energy is very, very important, to reduce the carbon 
footprint, which so many businesses now see as just not nice talk; it's 
really about hard decisions,

[[Page H14076]]

the yield, immense savings over relatively short periods of time, in 
many cases for those corporations, allow them to increase their 
investment in their businesses, their employees, or their own profits. 
And that's the kind of change that we need. It's the kind of change 
that we should be leading on. And under this effort to green the 
Capitol by the Speaker and the leadership with the Chief Administrative 
Officer, Dan Beard, we all see the benefits of it.
  And, again, as Mr. Blumenauer was pointing out, these choices weren't 
difficult. They weren't costly. They weren't complex. But they weren't 
being made. And once they are made, people go on with their lives, and 
all of a sudden they are participating in reducing the tax that our 
activity puts on the environment, on the climate, on the resources of 
this Nation.
  So I really want to thank you. I want to join and associate myself 
with your remarks that you've all made. All of you have been involved 
in this effort on a national basis with your leadership and the 
protection of the oceans and new forms and methods of transportation 
and for communities. And, Jay, certainly your efforts on alternative 
energy has led the way in this Congress. Hopefully, over the next 
couple of weeks, we will be able to go to even a broader initiative, 
which is the passage of the energy bill, which will lead to alternative 
energy sources being developed, alternative fuels, and the savings on 
the cafe standards so that people who are now looking at a $3.50 
gasoline, $4 gasoline will be able to have the alternative of buying a 
more efficient automobile, a less polluting automobile. They'll feel 
good about it. Their pocketbook will feel good about it, and I think 
their children will really like the idea too.
  So thank you so much for taking this time on the floor tonight.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Congressman Miller. Thank you for your 
decades of leadership.
  And I appreciate what you said a moment ago about our responsibility 
as a neighbor. I have been privileged to be a Member of Congress for 12 
years. And 3 of those 12 years on Earth Day, we went down and had press 
conferences using that coal smoke belching out of the Capitol power 
plant as an example of what we would like to change. And it's 
interesting, I remember, Congressman Farr, when I first came here, we 
were concerned about the whole House of Representatives, with 
gazillions of tons of paper. Sam, help me. I think it was something 
like $21.17 for a year.
  Mr. FARR. We didn't recycle, and we put an effort into doing that. 
Where that has grown now is all of the paper that's sold to all the 
offices, and there are 70 million pieces of paper per year used in the 
U.S. Capitol, we are replacing all that virgin paper, which cut down 
about 30,000 grown trees, it is all now 100 percent post-consumer waste 
recycled paper. So just that alone. And in the store where we buy all 
our supplies, that store sells recycled printer cartridges. That store 
becomes the receptacle for all the batteries that are used, for cell 
phones, and for BlackBerrys. So that they will all be part of the 
recycling stream. So we have just changed the entire approach to how we 
do business just in our office supplies in this Capitol.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I must note, Mr. Speaker, that that first year when 
we were trying to get the House under the Republican leadership to 
change their policies, the entire House of Representatives, with all 
this paper, with the staff, they recovered what I think was less than a 
Boy Scout troop would do in my neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. It was 
embarrassing. We've turned the corner. It is a significant change.
  And I deeply appreciate, Sam, the work that you've done personally to 
sort of pound that drum and make it happen.
  Mr. FARR. Can I just tell you our offices led this effort on 
recycling, and my staff really got involved with it. And I'm really 
surprised how much we are doing, and I am sure a lot of other offices 
are doing the same.
  We use only recycled paper products. The paper that is printed on 
only one side, we go through and have our interns make sure that that 
becomes the fax paper so that the clean side is used again in the fax 
process. The white paper, mixed paper, and newspapers each have their 
own recycling bin. Cardboard is set aside to be recycled. As long as 
they have a clean side, mail campaign postcards are bundled and used as 
scratch paper.
  Each work station in my office has three bins, one for white paper, 
one for mixed paper, and one for wet trash. The officer manager will 
spot check the bins to make sure that everyone is separating their 
trash correctly. And we also have a separate bin for plastics, glass, 
and cans. Now, that's just one office. And the point here is we can all 
do this. And there is money to be made by the government in these 
recycled products.
  What you are talking about is the Department of Agriculture just down 
the street has about as many employees as the House of Representatives. 
They were making tens of thousands, I think about $80,000 a year profit 
on recycling in the Department of Agriculture. And as you pointed out, 
the United States Congress was making about $21 a year.
  So that has all changed thanks to this new leadership. And I am very 
proud to be a part of this greening of America by starting here in the 
Capitol of the United States.
  Mr. INSLEE. I want to just express an experience that we have had and 
these companies that have gone down this route have had. Two things 
they've learned: Number one, hardly anybody gripes about it. I mean 
it's amazing. We have done all these things we have been talking about 
here tonight, changing the coal plant, changing the cafeteria, changing 
paper usage, changing lighting usage, changing some of our 
transportation usage, and, frankly, nobody is griping about it. We have 
got 435 people here griping about everything from the weather to the 
price of bananas, but none of our Members are griping about this 
because we are finding out that we can accommodate our businesses and 
our lifestyles just fine if we do this. And businesses have learned 
this as well. That's the first rule of greening an organization.
  The second rule is that people find out that virtue is cumulative. 
When people take one little step forward, they get into it, and then 
they take another step, and then they take another step. And companies 
continue. That's why Dow Chemical, even though they have been 
spectacularly successful in reducing their energy use by 20, 30 
percent, they are going to get another 20, 30 percent because people 
get excited about it, and we're seeing that.
  I wanted to just touch on transportation that Mr. Blumenauer was 
talking about. Mr. Boehner was criticizing this effort to give our 
employees flexibility to use cars. I want to mention two technologies 
that I think can help reinvent our transportation system in America.
  One is we are now testing a software system in Seattle which will 
give you instantaneous ride-sharing so that on your text message or 
your BlackBerry, you can say I want to go to this theater, get my ride, 
and this software system will patch you through to whoever is going in 
that direction. In 5 minutes, boom, you've got a ride. And that system 
has incredible promise to reduce congestion and reduce your cost of 
transportation if we can all start sharing rides in that regard. And 
I'm very excited about this. It has just gone in the first stage of 
trials.
  The second technology I want to mention, this is well beyond the 
House, but I want Members to know about this. We are having this 
discussion about improving average fuel economy standards. In the next 
2 weeks, hopefully, we will have it on this floor for debating on. But 
I think the capability exists to blow way beyond anything that we have 
even thought about in fuel mileage. We're arguing about whether we can 
get 35 miles a gallon. I drive a car today that gets 45 miles a gallon. 
I'm six-two, 200 pounds. It's a five-passenger car. It's very 
convenient and it's safe.

                              {time}  2320

  We have a technology coming on in 5 or 6 years in cars that are on 
the road today called plug-in hybrid cars, and I learned about them 
when I was writing this book that Mr. Blumenauer talked about. It is 
plug-in hybrid technology. And here is a car that General Motors has. 
It is in reality. Here is a picture of it. It is the GM Volt. They want 
to have it on the road, mass production in

[[Page H14077]]

5 or 6 years. And the way it works is using an incredible battery 
technology. You plug it in at night; it has a little port. You plug it 
in, charge it for 6 to 8 hours. You unplug it in the morning, go about 
your driving. You can drive 40 miles with just electricity, no 
gasoline, no ethanol, just pure juice out of your plug. And it costs 
two-thirds less per mile than gasoline.
  Now, if you want to drive more than 40 miles, then you have a hybrid 
engine like the one in the car I am driving, in the Ford Escape or 
Toyota Prius. It will take you wherever you want to go for 200, 300 
miles. Someday it will burn cellulosic ethanol as well as gasoline. 
Right now these cars are on the road today. I've driven one on the 
Capitol grounds. They get 100 miles per gallon of gasoline today. When 
you drive it with ethanol, you will get 500 miles of gasoline. And the 
electricity you use will get cleaner over time. This car will get 
better over time as the electric grid becomes cleaner. You start using 
more solar power, more wind power, you actually put out less carbon. 
Nothing gets better in life as it gets older except wine and a plug-in 
electric car.
  I point this out because when we have this debate on the House floor 
in a few weeks, some people are going to say, Gee, I don't know if we 
can get to 35. Baloney. Hogwash. We have scads of cars that get 10 or 
15 over that today, and you have a car that is going to get 100 miles 
per gallon in 5 or 6 years. This is something we can do in this new 
spirit in the House led by Nancy Pelosi, to head down this route to the 
future, is one people are going to be happy with, and they have.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I must confess, and you and I have endured some 
fascinating hearings on our global warming committee having these new 
technologies explained that are not, as you say, some far distant point 
in the future. They are available today for people to implement. I 
must, however, as the Chair of the congressional bicycle caucus, make a 
mention of proven technology that we have available now, where people 
can burn calories instead of electricity or fossil fuel.
  One of the things that I really appreciate Dan Beard working with us 
on is to make the cycling choice more readily available to employees on 
Capitol Hill. As I mentioned a moment ago, we have about 14,000 car 
trips a day to Capitol Hill. The majority of the trips to the Capitol 
by our employees are made by car, higher, at a higher percentage than 
the rest of D.C., where fewer than half of the residents drive to work.
  Mr. Beard has been working with us to be able to deal with making 
this Capitol more cycle friendly, working with the Washington Area 
Bicycling Association, the League of Bikers, to have more bike racks 
here on Capitol Hill, more secure facilities, lockers perhaps inside 
the garages. When I first came here, there are showers that are 
available for the staff, but people didn't want to let it on, I guess, 
because they wanted to be able to sort of use it on their own. But we 
have made some real progress. We have got maps now where the showers 
are available. We have added employee locker and gym facilities in 
Rayburn. But we have more work to do in terms of improving the choices 
for cyclists.
  Part of it, and I would defer to any of my esteemed colleagues here 
who are more senior, if there is something we do with the Capitol 
police so they don't have different standards for cyclists than people 
in cars or pedestrians, allowing the bikers to have the ramps, barriers 
that are lower for people who are cycling. So like I am cycling to 
Capitol Hill to vote, I don't have to choose to go on the sidewalk and 
harass pedestrians. In all seriousness, cycling is the most efficient 
form of urban transportation ever invented. It is something that helps 
promote health. It does not have any impact in terms of the 
environment, wear and tear on the roads, congestion, and in 13 years on 
Capitol Hill, almost 12 years now on Capitol Hill, I have never had to 
look for a parking place or be stuck in traffic. And I hope there is 
more we can continue to do with Mr. Beard working on this program for 
cycling promotion.
  Mr. INSLEE. I want to note as far as cycling, as a biker myself, the 
things we are talking about in a lot of communities that are improving 
their bike options, we are just giving people options. This is not the 
storm troopers coming down making everybody ride a bike. We are talking 
about giving Americans more options in how to get to work and back. 
This is one that in my town of Seattle, every year there are scads more 
people riding bikes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. You are almost caught up to Portland.
  Mr. INSLEE. Almost, to compliment Mr. Blumenauer's hometown, 
Portland, Oregon, is the first city in the United States to reduce the 
number of miles that people drive per capita. And that is a fundamental 
achievement, and I know how they have done it because they have 
visionary leadership, Mr. Blumenauer included; they have more public 
transportation options with light rail and buses, more bike options, 
better land use, planning that allows people to live close to public 
transportation options, and they are well on their way to meeting the 
CO2 targets that they have set. And it has happened because 
they have simply given people options. They haven't told people what to 
do. They just gave people a smorgasbord, and people did what was 
comfortable for them. A lot of it is bicycling, if they can catch Mr. 
Blumenauer.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I want to thank you. It has been a 
long day. It is now 11:30, so I want to thank you for recognizing what 
has been done here for the greening of the Capitol under the leadership 
of Dan Beard and the Speaker. And I want to take my very efficient cell 
phone, I am going to walk, and it is going to be very efficient, pretty 
carbon neutral, and I am just going to walk home. And if you are still 
here I will watch you on C-SPAN. But it has been a great education, and 
I am sure this House staff would like to officially go home. I think 
this has been a very important review of our first year, and it is only 
the beginning. And as Congressman Inslee has said, so many of the 
changes we are not even aware of because they really don't interfere. 
They don't change the way we do business or the way we eat at the 
cafeteria or wherever it is. It is just greener, better, smarter, and 
in many instances it saves us money. So thank you very much for your 
recognizing this first year of the greening of the Capitol.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you for joining us and for your work.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Is your bike outside?
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Do you want to borrow one?
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Maybe I will take your bike.
  Mr. FARR. What is interesting in talking about the cafeteria, it 
hasn't been mentioned what Dan Beard did is we put out a contract. As 
you know we have cafeterias in buildings and take-out centers. We have 
a lot of food service here. They redid the contract for all the food 
services, and a firm won this contract. It is a big one. I think it is 
about $20 million. They are going to provide all fair trade coffee, 
which is the coffee that is paid the best price because you grow it for 
organic conditions, for taking care of the employees, paying good wages 
of doing it environmentally sensitive, and Starbucks and everybody else 
is participating in this. Also, the foods in our cafeterias are going 
to be organic. We are going to make sure that the eating habits of 
Congress become a lot healthier along with the way we are doing 
business in our offices.
  Lastly, I am going to walk home with George Miller, so I will leave, 
but I want to tell you, that in our office and I think other offices, 
we don't throw out the magazines, as we send them to the VA and 
community health clinics and senior centers. We don't put any dead 
batteries into the trash. We deposit them in a single place so they can 
be recycled. This is interesting, all the CDs you get sent in the mail 
for promotional advocacy efforts, they are not thrown out. They are 
provided to local gardeners to use to scare off birds and squirrels in 
their vegetable garden.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Do they play them to scare them?
  Mr. FARR. They use them as reflectors.
  I just want to say to my colleagues, especially to you, Earl, that 
you have been a champion every day reminding people of the art of the 
possible, whether it is the bike caucus or the livable cities caucus or 
all of these things that end up being essentially the best that

[[Page H14078]]

America can reach for. I am very proud to serve with you. Thank you for 
asking us all to participate in tonight's caucus.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Sam. Thank you for your efforts and your 
kind words. I want to just elaborate for a moment on a point that 
Congressman Inslee said in terms of providing choices.

                              {time}  2330

  What we are talking about here today is to provide Americans with 
better choices that meet their needs, giving them options, because too 
many people are trapped in a car, too many people don't have 
environmentally-sensitive opportunities available to them. Every day, 
Americans make billions of decisions about where to shop, what to buy, 
how to move, where to go. The extent to which we get it right, to give 
them a range of choices about where they live, how they can move that 
are available to them that meet their needs, we find that people 
inevitably gravitate toward things that are better for them and better 
for the community.
  We are seeing it now coast to coast in terms of opportunities of 
livable communities where, if they can walk safely, they will; if they 
can bike safely, they will. They will take transit if it's available to 
them.
  I think, Congressman Inslee, your point a moment ago about choice, 
about choice and leveling the playing field, is really what this battle 
is about. If we are able to squeeze out the incentives for things that 
really aren't environmentally sensitive, because we tend to subsidize a 
lot of things that are actually environmentally destructive. If we even 
out the economics, if we give people those choices, it's going to make 
a difference. We are seeing it here on Capitol Hill, greening the 
Capitol in a way that will save us money while we give people better 
choices.
  I know you have a lot of thoughts about ways to give people more 
choices in areas of energy conservation and production. I wonder as we 
are wrapping up if you have some thoughts that you would like to share 
in that direction.
  Mr. INSLEE. Just one general one, and that is that the reason our 
approach to greening the Capitol works is that we are the optimists in 
this debate. We are the people who believe that options exist, that 
technologies will continue to grow, and as a result of that, Americans 
will have more choices of how they use energy and how they produce 
energy.
  We have mentioned some of those new technologies tonight. I will just 
give you an example of a couple I've learned about in the last year 
about how to produce green electricity. We have made a commitment to 
buy green electricity for the U.S. House of Representatives. I just 
want to mention a couple of new ways to produce it.
  One is wave power. If you have ever watched a big ship bob up and 
down on the waves, you understand how much power there is on the ocean. 
We have people capturing that energy and able to create electricity. 
This is a picture of a buoy. A similar one is going off the coast of 
Oregon this fall. The first wave power buoys in the world to be 
deployed were in Hawaii and are now powering some naval stations.
  These are designed to essentially capture energy. As these buoys bob 
up and down, they compress water or air, creating pressure, which 
drives a generator, creates electricity, goes to the shore on a wire. 
Each have the capability to power close to 1,000 homes. There is enough 
energy in the waves in a 10-by-10-mile stretch off the Pacific Coast to 
produce all of the electricity for the State of California.
  We are not guaranteed these are going to work because we have to make 
sure they can survive the terrible stresses at sea. But according to 
the Department of Energy, they have the capacity to produce 10 percent 
of all the electrical usage in the United States. I point this out 
because this technology wasn't even dreamed of 10 years ago.
  Now, we have another option that could be available to Americans that 
right now, big investment, there's a lot of private investment in these 
companies. A company Finavera in Washington, a company called Ocean 
Power Technologies, there is a company associated with Oregon State 
University in Mr. Blumenauer's State. All work different approaches to 
this.
  A second one that is intended to capture the power of the oceans are 
tidal-powered turbines that work sort of like a wind turbine, but they 
work on the currents that are driven by the tides. This is a picture of 
one. This is one by Verdant Power that works just like a wind turbine, 
but uses water through the blades instead of wind. Verdant actually has 
these in the East River in New York City. They are actually powering a 
grocery store right now with electricity.
  We found out when the first six went in the water, there's actually 
more power than they knew, which actually disabled some of these so 
they have got to rebuild them to make them stronger, which is good news 
because there is more power than they thought.
  We have someone in the State of Washington looking at potentially 
powering 50,000 homes with these tidal turbines now in the estuaries of 
Puget Sound.
  I just point this out that we believe there are numerous options; we 
believe there are technologies that are going to free us from the 
constraints of the past. We are proving it in the U.S. Capitol. You can 
look at the dome and see the citadel of democracy and the citadel of 
new ways to save energy and produce it. I think Americans can be proud 
of that. I think we have a right to be a little bit, too.
  Mr. Blumenauer, I thank you for your leadership on this and in 
leading in discussion.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Congressman Inslee. I appreciate your 
being here, I appreciate your explanations, and I appreciate your 
continued work on our various committees that we serve on.
  One final point that I would say in conclusion that we haven't talked 
about is that this is not just an issue of greening the Capitol in 
terms of providing examples. This is also fundamentally that the same 
principles that we are talking about here make a huge difference for 
American security. The first hearing that we had on our Global Warming 
and Energy Independence Committee was a panel of retired military and 
intelligence experts.
  The United States Department of Defense is the largest consumer of 
energy in the world. An aircraft carrier gets 17 feet to the gallon. 
The war in Iraq is the most energy-intensive military operation in 
the history of the world. It is four times more energy-intensive than 
the first Iraq war. We are delivering gasoline to the front at a price 
of over $100 a gallon, and it's being delivered in tanker trucks that 
might as well have great big bull's eyes on them.

  Our military understands that part of the reason they are engaged in 
Iraq now is because it is the second largest source of proven oil 
reserves. They understand that their budgets are being tortured out of 
all proportion because of the rapidly escalating energy costs. They 
understand that our dependence on petroleum in areas that are 
extraordinarily volatile in the Middle East, in other parts of the 
world and Africa, Venezuela, and being linked to a decline in petroleum 
whenever that peak hits, if it hasn't already, and handcuffs them, puts 
them at risk, costs them money.
  So while we are talking about greening the Capitol, empowering people 
in the neighborhoods to live more environmentally-sensitive lives and 
to be able to have policies that will reduce the threat of global 
warming and greenhouse gases, there is a very real and very tangible 
element here that is the very security of the United States and the 
protection of our soldiers.
  The things that you have been talking about here, Mr. Inslee, and 
others, that we have talked about on Capitol Hill, if we are able to 
implement them for the Department of Defense, it's going to make a huge 
difference for the taxpayer and the safety and the military 
effectiveness of our soldiers.
  Mr. INSLEE. We know we can do this. We know, because we have had 
success. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, we improved our mileage of 
our cars by 60 percent. Then in 1994 those efforts stopped and we 
stopped making any progress. Our cars are getting actually less mileage 
than they did in 1984. If we had simply continued on that rate of 
improvement, we would be free of Saudi Arabian oil today. Now we have 
got to get back on this bandwagon of using our brains to get better 
mileage. We know we can do this.

[[Page H14079]]

  Just as a closing comment, I want to express my appreciation to the 
Americans doing this. We are not the only ones doing this in the 
Capitol. I know a woman on Bainbridge Island that greened up her home. 
I would like to say we're meeting that bar here in the House.
  Again, thank you, Mr. Blumenauer.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Congressman Inslee. I think it's safe to 
say that we are running to catch up with the American people, and that 
is one of the reasons why I think we are ultimately going to be 
successful in this, because the American public gets it.

                              {time}  2340

  Whether it is college campuses, churches, Girl Scout troops or 
Optimist Clubs, people are moving in this direction. I appreciate 
working with you and your joining us this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I know this will disappoint you because there are 
potentially another 15 minutes that we could have you and the dedicated 
desk staff held hostage, but I think we might sort of celebrate 
breaking for the holiday, and I am happy to yield back my time.

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